Ooof. I like Steve Machine Gun Smith, and I like jazz, and I like Journey.
I do not like either of those two versions of those songs. It just shows you that deconstructive jazz can make any song with a great hook and a great vibe, into a completely forgettable tune.
I had an instructor at Texas whose major undertaking was Atonal Composition. It's what you think it is. It's the complete rejection of traditional Western music rules regarding intervals, dissonances, chords, progressions, and whatnot.
Much like deconstructionist jazz, I had to admit that I didn't know enough about music composition to fully understand or appreciate the pieces he played for me. I did agree that I could find no tonal center nor progressions in it.
Really, while I've studied more than the average guy, I still want to relate to my music on a visceral, emotional ground. I have to be able to find some sort of theme in it. While I must admit that "total lack of theme" might be some kind of meta-theme, it more seems like a new, novel way of putting together a bicycle - that doesn't allow me to ride anywhere. Interesting, but useless.
Don't blame y'all at all. What you describe is the weird tension that went through my brain as I listened to it. Those songs hit the way they do, in part, precisely because they're
not jazz. Lots of tri-tone chords in a relatively predictable order. Not a lot of "7th" chords (or more complicated), no weird substitutions that work so well in jazz. In other words, pop is pop because it feels like pop. They were written to be pop songs.
I don't objectively dislike what I was hearing. If I'd never heard the originals, I'd probably think "This is a neat jazz song." But my brain can't stop latching onto the familiar parts of the original, and my mind becomes averse to and rebels against the mutation of it.
So I'm stuck with this "I like it but I don't" feeling.
Now, what I would push back just a smidge on is the jazz deconstruction of a song making it more forgettable......a moderate dose of that can be quite something. Dirty Loops is a good example of that. They took jazz elements and turned wretched Brittany Spears and Justin Bieber songs into something I really enjoy. Granted, it wasn't jazz, but they certainly used jazz tropes to do it.
Anyway, I won't torture y'all with any more of that. Let's see what else might be on my mind.......
